Often one hears that everything is already invented and that only incremental improvements are possible. Well, tell this to Mr. Krinner. He has invented two products that just changed the way how jobs are getting done. He invented the Krinner Christmas tree stand and the ground screw.

Probably, you never heard of Mr. Krinner and his company. But if you have no problem to put up your Christmas tree straight and safely, than you probably use his tree stand. His tree stand is not high tech, it just solves the problem to erect a Christmas tree easily and with high stability.

The second innovation by Mr. Krinner is as simple as the tree stand: The ground screw. What the heck is this? You probably have never heard of this product category before and right, Mr. Krinner invented this product category. But you know the problem Mr. Krinner solved: Fixing something in the ground. Continue reading Great Innovation: Getting a job done

Amazon recently introduced the new Kindle 2, a wireless reading device for books or an e-reader. While the German publishing industry at best sees the Kindle as a new distribution channel [update: link no longer available] for its current content and some even complain about the high cost of ebooks the Americans start thinking about what new things you can do with the Kindle.

That is a typical reaction for a technology that might change the existing business model, in this case the book publishing industry. The traditional way of thinking is how does the new technology perform compared to the existing technology. And from that point of view the Kindle is not as good as the paper book. Continue reading Amazon’s Kindle and new business models